The Last Daughter of Highdown Hall

Chapter 1 Zoe Spring 2025

Zoe

The skin on her hands and feet is tinged grey and purple now. Like a giant bruise creeping across her body. Zoe lays her mother’s hand back on the sheet and looks up at the nurse.

‘It won’t be long now, Zoe,’ says the nurse, her eyes soft. ‘It’s long past time to call them. They do have a right to know. To be here.’

Zoe nods and strokes her mother’s hand, skin like tracing paper stretched across her knobbly veins, but still as soft as she remembers from holding as a child. Her finger catches on her mother’s loose gold wedding band and she slips it back into place.

Do they have a right? she wonders. They’ve known Mum was seriously ill for months, years. But they’ve each had their justifications for not coming back home to Highdown Hall. To leaving Mum’s care to her. She twists her three silver bands around her thumb.

Fiona she can almost excuse. Singapore is a world away and the last thing Zoe wanted was Fi flying back and forth to London every time Mum dipped.

More pointless emissions. Best she stayed there until there was no choice but to return.

Is that now? She swallows and looks up at her mother’s face.

Her eyes are shut, the silver scar on her temple barely visible now her skin is so pale, her slack mouth revealing her yellowing teeth.

Zoe hasn’t brushed them for over a week now.

It upset Mum the last time she tried and the nurse says not to bother.

You know you’re ill when they tell you not to brush your teeth.

Mum has enjoyed the occasional Zoom with Fi, although the time difference has been tricky recently with Mum’s erratic sleeping.

Fi all dressed up in smart suits and gold bling, picking up the laptop to show Mum the skyline of a city she’ll never see.

Sara is busy with her three children. Zoe glances at the photo on the bedside table – a soft-focus studio shot of Sara holding the baby with the twins smiling down at her.

There’s the familiar twist in her stomach.

Mum insisted it be moved there from the drawing room though there’s not really enough space with all the medical paraphernalia.

But the Surrey Hills are only forty miles away.

There are trains. Sara did call last week to see how Mum was, and she asked how Zoe was doing.

Which Fi never does. But still. Sara’s got a husband to look after the kids. Zoe blows air up into her fringe.

It’s Steph’s silence Zoe can’t understand.

She only lives ten miles away. No children, no big job.

And she’s the eldest. Traditionally, it was the eldest child who took responsibility for everyone.

Steph has never done that. She’s always been the first to run away from any family issue, the first to give her excuses not to attend something.

She was late for their father’s funeral, for God’s sake.

But then Steph has always been different from them all.

Distant. Reclusive. Happy to rescue anything with four legs, but no interest in her own family.

So it’s been left to her, Zoe, to nurse their mother.

Zoe refills her mother’s beaker from the jug, water sloshing on to her hands as she clicks the sippy lid back into place.

She wipes them on her dungarees and looks back at her mother.

But they are her sisters and they should be here, she knows that.

It’s been hard getting any definite timings from the nurses.

The new nurse who came yesterday said that patients can surprise you and recover, even at this stage.

Maybe that’s why she hasn’t called them, Zoe thinks.

There’s still hope. Maybe. The doctor said a while ago that Mum probably didn’t have long.

But what does that actually mean? Illness and death seem so wrapped up in euphemism.

They gave her a leaflet about what to expect at the end.

But it was Helen, her hospice nurse friend, who gave her the best advice.

If the patient is getting worse month by month, they’ve got months left, she said.

If they’re getting worse week by week, they’ve got weeks left. If they’re getting worse day by—

Helen didn’t have to finish. Mum has become less responsive every day this week.

The nurse is leaning over her mother, checking her pulse. She’s very still and for a moment Zoe’s own heart seems to stop. Is it? Has she? But then the nurse jots something down on the clipboard. Zoe lets out the breath she didn’t realise she was holding.

When her mother sees her sisters, will she know that the end is near? Could it actually tip her over the edge? Zoe wouldn’t want to scare her into going before her time.

The nurse lifts the duvet to check the syringe driver. ‘I’ll be back at around five p.m. but you know the number to call if you need us before then.’

Zoe nods. ‘Thank you.’

She squeezes Zoe’s shoulder, then looks back at Mum. ‘Goodbye for now, Milly,’ she says as she always does, then leaves the room. The syringe driver exhales.

Zoe stares at her mother’s chest, waiting for the tiny movement of the cotton nightie. It seems an age until it comes. Will this be how it ends? No last words, no fanfare. Just a breath not taken. And then another not taken. And another. Stillness.

Zoe picks up her phone, pushes her fringe out of her eyes and starts scrolling through the numbers. Which of her sisters should she call first?

Milly

1987

Steph never listens. ‘I’m not saying that at all. I’m just suggesting that if you listen more and don’t talk back, and do your homework, then you won’t get into trouble.’

Steph gives a theatrical sigh and flicks her hair.

‘I’ve done my homework,’ a voice chirps from the back seat. I catch Fiona’s eye in the rear-view mirror and paste on a smile.

‘Well done, darling.’

‘Yeah, but your homework is like two plus two. Or find the capital of France on the map,’ says Steph.

My jaw tenses and I try to relax it.

‘Teddy wants to know who France is,’ says Sara, swinging her bear from side to side with one hand, the thumb of her other hand firmly in her mouth. Her hair is a scribble on top of her head. I must brush it before she goes into the school nursery.

Steph laughs.

‘It’s the country just underneath us. We can get the ferry there. They speak a different language to us,’ I say, as cheerily as I can. ‘Now take your thumb out of your mouth, darling.’

‘Just underneath us,’ Steph mimics. ‘Don’t you mean south?’

My jaw is tense again. ‘South.’ I smile in the mirror at Sara, who hasn’t moved her thumb.

I indicate to turn off the main road. Not far now.

Next to me Steph puts her hands over her ears, and screws up her face. ‘Stop doing that,’ she says.

‘Doing what?’ There’s a queue of traffic and no gap to get through on to the school road. Why don’t people leave a space? They’re supposed to.

‘The indicator. It’s so annoying. The tick tock, tick tock.’

‘I’ve told you before, I need the indicator so I show the traffic behind me that I want to turn right. It wouldn’t be safe not to use it.’

The traffic is beginning to move. Thank God.

Steph leans over, flicks the indicator off and shoves my hand from the steering wheel. In my panic, I stall the car.

‘That’s dangerous.’ I glare at her and slam my foot on the brake, taking it out of gear.

I turn on the ignition, put my foot on the clutch and engage first gear.

I’m not sure what happens but I stall again.

Someone behind me hoots. As I try again my feet are shaking so much that I instantly stall. There’s now a cacophony of hooting.

The car behind me goes up on the grass verge to get past on the left. ‘Women drivers,’ he shouts out the window as he passes.

Steph gives him the V-sign. There are pricks of blood on her hand. Her eczema’s flaring up again.

‘Steph,’ I say. ‘Don’t do that.’ I admire her though, for taking a stand.

Two other cars follow, and Steph gestures at both of them. ‘Stop picking at your skin, darling, you’ve made your hand bleed.’

‘What’s Steph doing?’ says Fiona, craning forward.

‘Put on your seat belt, Fi. And you, Sara.’ For God’s sake, breathe, breathe.

Don’t stall again. In the rear-view mirror, I can see there’s a queue of about twenty cars.

The vehicles the other side have cleared.

I manage to start the car and turn right into the senior school road, ignoring Steph’s cheer.

‘Now then. After school, I’m going to pick up you first, Steph, and then come back to the village for Fiona and Sara as it’s ballet tonight. ’

‘It’s okay, I’m going out with my friends after school. You can pick me up later. Or Alice can.’ Steph’s looking out of the window.

‘No, I can’t be running back and forth from the village to town. I’ll pick you up straight after school and then collect Fiona and Sara and we’ll all go to ballet together. You and I can chat while Fiona’s in her class.’

Steph curls her lip. ‘I don’t think so. I’ll wait for Alice.’

‘Alice is leaving early today, she’s got something on.’

I pull up outside her school and she’s out of the car before I’ve even stopped the engine. ‘I’ll be right here at three. Please be waiting.’

She laughs, slams the door hard and throws her bag over her shoulder as she saunters away.

I lean across, the seat belt digging into my chest, and roll down the window.

‘Three p.m. here, Stephanie,’ I shout. A group of girls near the car turn and giggle, but Steph completely ignores me.

The horn makes a satisfyingly loud noise.

‘Stephanie!’ But she’s too far away to hear now. Probably.